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[Drinky Crow]

Playing through the game on Veteran, and I can't figure out why this game didn't sell loads better. It's a great party-management RPG and lightyears beyond the "potion-drinking sim" that was the original. The sequel has beautiful level design, great boss encounters, loads of challenge, and real tactical scenarios. Sure, the VA work flayed the ears and the plot is a little intrusive in the first hour of the game, but the rest is golden. Well, that and the new effect for lightning spells SUCKS.

Curious why folks stayed away or didn't like it. After AoE3 and BF2, this was the best PC game of last year.

Also, as a complete non-sequitur, BLACKADDER ROCKS. Still as funny as I remember it. Blackadder Goes Forth FTW, fruits! I thought the utter worthlessness of Mr. Bean (both the TV show and movies) had ruined Rowan Atkinson for me, but NOPE Blackadder is still friggin' classic. Hugh Laurie as George >>>> Hugh Laurie as House.

 

[monchi-kun]

because the first game was over-hyped which lead to some skepticism. DS1 wasn't a bad game per-se, but it just felt like few of my decisions on party composition, weapon use, formations, actually made a noticeable differerence in gameplay.

 

[crunker99]

it was real fun but it wasnt anything revolutionary unfortuinately, just more of the same of that genre so it wasnt anything worth going out of your way to get, but it was good if u got it

 

[Grug]

Curious why folks stayed away or didn't like it. After AoE3 and BF2, this was the best PC game of last year.

Civ IV says go screw yourself.

 

[Drinky Crow]

What would make a game in that genre "revolutionary"? As long as the controls are tight, the challenges solid, the progress well-paced, and the loot phat, innovation can go rot.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Civ 4 sucked. I tried and tried and TRIED to like it, but between the endless ATi glitches (before I got my current 7800 rig), the memory leaks, the countless UI and AI bugs, the shitty performance, and the tiny maps, it became a Civ I didn't want to play. I actually reinstalled Test of Time and Call to Power 2 and had loads more fun.

 

[monchi-kun]

hype kills franchises, nothing wrong with being non-revolutionary but I guess people were expecting the first game to be the next big thing after Diablo 2

 

[Drinky Crow]

Oh, I don't doubt that hype and subsequent disappointment that collectively defined the Dungeon Siege experience hurt DS2 sales, but I'm also surprised that given the potential of the engine and the developer acknowledgment of their glaring mistakes that folks weren't willing to give Chris Taylor's baby a second chance.

 

[monchi-kun]

Oh, I don't doubt that hype and subsequent disappointment that collectively defined the Dungeon Siege experience hurt DS2 sales, but I'm also surprised that given the potential of the engine and the developer acknowledgment of their glaring mistakes that folks weren't willing to give Chris Taylor's baby a second chance.

nature of the business man, sometimes you get one shot, other times you're John Romero....an immortal that just won't die....

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

Uwe Boll?

 

[monchi-kun]

Uwe Boll?

Low Lube

 

[Calidor]

This game is just FUN. Too bad it bombed

 

[Excelion]

On the other hand, this year also saw games like Dungeon Siege II. In 2002, Chris Taylor gave us the most boring RPG ever--Dungeon Siege. Three years and far too many development diaries later, we were given a sequel that, to put it simply, still sucks. The reason why is simple. As Saint Proverbius noted, the problem with Dungeon Siege II is that it's an action RPG made by people who don't really understand what makes action RPGs good. Chris Taylor was under the impression that Dungeon Siege II "represents one of the highest density experiences you'll ever get in a box." If you play the game, you will see that it represents nothing but boredom, mediocre gameplay, and bad game design. You get classes with meaningless racial modifiers like +2 to Strength that work in D&D, but are meaningless in a system where stats' values quickly raise to 100+, making race a purely cosmetic choice. You get skill trees that railroad you into one of the 3 stereotypes and force you to stick with one, unlike Diablo II skill trees that supported various and diverse builds, inviting players to experiment with them. The DS2 skills mostly offer bonuses to existing attacks and abilities, which makes progressing and reaching levels less rewarding than it should be. And last, but not the least, the gameplay itself remains as boring and uneventful as in the first Dungeon Siege, which was often thought to be an expensive screensaver. Whereas in Diablo II you have to use different attacks and skills to deal with different situations, in DS2 you have only ONE attack, so you end up holding the button down killing things and waiting for your unbalanced special attacks, dealing thousands points of damage, to charge. At that point you release almost instant death on a poor creature that happened to be nearby, and the “wait for the special attack to charge" minigame begins again. Chapter bosses add to the pain by having tens of thousands of hit points, so defeating them, just like playing the entire game, is a long and boring process, requiring a lot of patience and lack of anything better to do. Rarely has a game made adventure and combat as boring as the Dungeon Siege games do--but hey, at least it looks nice.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

 

[Borys]

I'll bite, Drinky:

Because it sucked, period.

Mind you I didn't actually love DS1 - standard Diablo-clone number NNNNTH with 3D graphics, but I liked it so much to pay for the Aranna expansion pack and, yes, to buy DS2.

DS1 offered something new and unexperienced before - no loading zones and one continuos world. Just for kicks, afterr I beat the last guy in his hellish caves I wandered on foot, back to the very BEGINNING of the game (your village in the forest). It took me around 1:30h but it was actually DOABLE - not a single loading screen and whole friggin world traversed back & forth.

DS2 butchered even that - with it's stupid and unnecessary teleportation system that *gasp* had loading times. Oh and try to go back to the beach your squad landed on - NUH-UH, can't do.

Strike one against DS2.

Strike two is the insanely stupid idea to limit your party sizes to what was that again? 4 party members on easy, 5 on hard and 6 on veteran? Talk about a step back - DS1 gave you 6 (or 7, I don't remember exactly) slots from the beginning - you only had to pay some cash and NPC's would join.

So while in DS1 I had a party of 2 tanks, nature mage, archer, and 2 combat mages (+donkey) in DS2 I had to struggle with 2 warriors, one mage and a donkey.

FFS.

Strike three against DS2 is the ridiculous amount of jungles this game offers. I hate jungles and swamps so I hate DS2.

DS1 had this tremendously fun area with mecha-tanks, flamethrower gobs and barrel-made ED 2099's, memorable Ice Caverns with flying drakes, the arachnid filled dungeon with mother of a spider at the end, FRIGGIN DRAGON you had to fight near the end of the game... name one memorable area from DS2, c'mon I'm waiting.

Oh, right, the castle siege with a huge dragon head - too bad there was a bug in my savegame that made that dragon never show up. Game broken, can't move forward. Luckily some guy coded a script that allowed me to move past this area (and fight the same head again when it bursts through the wall near the end of the hallway).

DS2 final boss is pathetic. The way you fight him (strike some obelisks!) and the way you defeat him (strike even bigger obelisk to burn a hole in his torso!) is even more stupid.

DS2 lacks... fun. It wasn't fun when I was playing it. Diablo was fun, Dungeon Siege 1 was fun, DS2 felt like work - "need 2000 xp more to level up, need to clear one area more".

And don't get me started on the graphics - take DS1 engine, make texture resolution 2x, make the polycounts 3x and that's... all? Where are the shadows? Where is the bumpmapping? Pixel-shader spell effects? This game looks like some 1999 game with ultra-high-res FANMADE texture pack FFS.

I have ZERO interest in the upcoming DS2 XP and I don't think this interest will go up when they announce DS3.

This game had its chance and blew it up.

 

[Mejilan]

I bought the original AND its expansion, and haven't yet been sold on the sequel. $20 or bust.

Calidor, you have a very cute avatar.

 

[stonedwal]

I feel like it came out at the wrong time - it's still installed on my drive, but I struggled to get into it. I'll try one day, but I've just got too big a backlog for any RPGs to take priority. I did enjoy what I have played so far, but imagine that it's far more interesting in multiplayer than solo.

 

[Ghost]

It was infinitely better than DS1, but it still felt like Diablo 2 and a bit...i think peoples expectations are a lot higher these days.

 

[blackadde]

Also, as a complete non-sequitur, BLACKADDER ROCKS. Still as funny as I remember it. Blackadder Goes Forth FTW, fruits! I thought the utter worthlessness of Mr. Bean (both the TV show and movies) had ruined Rowan Atkinson for me, but NOPE Blackadder is still friggin' classic. Hugh Laurie as George >>>> Hugh Laurie as House.

i am aware.

 

[siege]

DS2 has one of the worst scripts and voice acting in game I've ever come across. So very horrible.

I realize it's about hack 'n slash gameplay and not the story, but come on, that shit is just pathetic.

 

[cicero]

Playing through the game on Veteran, and I can't figure out why this game didn't sell loads better. It's a great party-management RPG and lightyears beyond the "potion-drinking sim" that was the original. The sequel has beautiful level design, great boss encounters, loads of challenge, and real tactical scenarios. Sure, the VA work flayed the ears and the plot is a little intrusive in the first hour of the game, but the rest is golden. Well, that and the new effect for lightning spells SUCKS.

Curious why folks stayed away or didn't like it. After AoE3 and BF2, this was the best PC game of last year.

Why would most gamers want to be limited to 4 character slots until they run through the game just to unlock the other modes with the increased slots? That is 80-120 hours of gameplay just to unlock all the slot modes. Too many items that end up being sold for gold that is used...to buy store bought items that are weaker than those you get from enemies, very dated graphics, the legacy of the first DS game, simplistic combat...

As for other points, I agree largely with the quote given by Excelion:

On the other hand, this year also saw games like Dungeon Siege II. In 2002, Chris Taylor gave us the most boring RPG ever--Dungeon Siege. Three years and far too many development diaries later, we were given a sequel that, to put it simply, still sucks. The reason why is simple. As Saint Proverbius noted, the problem with Dungeon Siege II is that it's an action RPG made by people who don't really understand what makes action RPGs good. Chris Taylor was under the impression that Dungeon Siege II "represents one of the highest density experiences you'll ever get in a box." If you play the game, you will see that it represents nothing but boredom, mediocre gameplay, and bad game design. You get classes with meaningless racial modifiers like +2 to Strength that work in D&D, but are meaningless in a system where stats' values quickly raise to 100+, making race a purely cosmetic choice. You get skill trees that railroad you into one of the 3 stereotypes and force you to stick with one, unlike Diablo II skill trees that supported various and diverse builds, inviting players to experiment with them. The DS2 skills mostly offer bonuses to existing attacks and abilities, which makes progressing and reaching levels less rewarding than it should be. And last, but not the least, the gameplay itself remains as boring and uneventful as in the first Dungeon Siege, which was often thought to be an expensive screensaver. Whereas in Diablo II you have to use different attacks and skills to deal with different situations, in DS2 you have only ONE attack, so you end up holding the button down killing things and waiting for your unbalanced special attacks, dealing thousands points of damage, to charge. At that point you release almost instant death on a poor creature that happened to be nearby, and the “wait for the special attack to charge" minigame begins again. Chapter bosses add to the pain by having tens of thousands of hit points, so defeating them, just like playing the entire game, is a long and boring process, requiring a lot of patience and lack of anything better to do. Rarely has a game made adventure and combat as boring as the Dungeon Siege games do--but hey, at least it looks nice.

Those are the, imho, legitimate reasons why the game didn't get the critical acclaim and then the widespread sales that it might have. I still thought it was a good dungeon hack, the graphics and other issues didn't help though.

i am aware.

You are missing an "r".

 

[slayn]

in playing ds2 by myself I felt like I was playing icewind dale except with watered down characters/management/tactics and not a whole lot of challenge once you beefed up your super moves.

 

[TekunoRobby]

It's simple question with a simple answer. The usual fan base for those types of games is still fascinated with WoW, which also happens to provide better collect-a-thon gameplay with the added ability of showing off your loot to a possible 1,000+ captive audience.